5 Biggest Revelations From ‘The Flash’ Midseason Premiere

The CW’s “The Flash” returned for the second half of its second season Tuesday, with a midseason premiere filled with big entrances and exits.

The speedster himself Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) spent most of the episode contemplating whether to tell his new girlfriend Patty (Shantel VanSanten) about his super heroic alter ego.

Meanwhile, the other Flash, Earth 2’s Jay Garrick (Teddy Sears), discovered he’s deathly ill and the only cure is getting his speed back, giving Caitlin (Danielle Panabaker) a new purpose to work towards.

And that’s to speak nothing of the West family drama and the arrival of yet another Reverse-Flash.

Here are the five biggest revelations from the midseason premiere of “The Flash”:

1. Jay’s speed force is more than a superpower
Jay Garrick has become an ordinary guy without his super speed, but it turns out getting his powers back may be even more crucial than he thought. After swiping his DNA from a champagne glass, Caitlin discovers that he’s sick, and Jay confesses the only way to save him is to get his speed back. And the only way to get his speed back, of course, is to stop Zoom.

2. Goodbye Patty
As Barry struggled with whether to tell Patty that he was The Flash, the decision was ultimately taken out of his hands when Patty announced she was leaving town. After episode filled with frustration that he was clearly hiding something from her, a couple of dangerous encounters with the Turtle made up her mind to begin the Forensic Science program at Midway City University. There’s no word if Patty is really gone for good, but comic book fans may recognize her new fictional location as a home base of sorts to Hawkman (Falk Hentschel) and Hawkgirl (Ciara Renee), “Legends of Tomorrow” characters recently introduced during the latest crossover event with “Arrow.”

3. Harry begins to do Zoom’s work
In the midseason finale, Earth 2 Harrison Wells agreed to help Zoom get Barry’s speed. In the show’s return, we see this Harrison Wells display some of the darkness that enveloped the Earth 1 version of the character. In a voice-over montage wherein he pledges to do anything it takes to get his daughter Jesse (Violett Beane) back from Zoom, Wells goes down to the S.T.A.R. Labs basement, where the metahuman prisoners are kept, and proceeds to kill the villain of the week, the Turtle, and extract something from him in the process. No doubt this is all part of his larger plan as a double agent for Zoom. And another era of not trusting Harrison Wells begins.

4. Wally is already a speed demon
He may not be the DC superhero known as Kid Flash just yet, but the newly arrived Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) already has a taste for speed. It turns out he’s into drag racing, which puts him in direct conflict with the father he just met, Joe (Jesse L. Martin). Joe may not have any authority over his newly discovered son as a father figure, but he does have authority as a police officer. The two have a couple of tense meetings before seemingly coming to an understanding in moving forward. Now, where exactly was Iris (Candice Patton) during these seminal family bonding moments?

5. Reverse-Flash returns
And it’s the “real” Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher) this time, not Thawne in Harrison Wells’ body. Thawne in the Reverse-Flash costume, speeding onto a dark quiet street and then immediately asking his AI sidekick Gideon where the hell he is. This is probably the Earth 2 version of Thawne, and he seems decidedly less evil than the Wells version Barry defeated last season, but this certainly throws yet another new wrench into “The Flash’s” big battle against Zoom this season.

"Adventures of Superman," 1952-1958
Best: The George Reeves version of Krypton's favorite son was pretty well received: springboard jumps and all. Of course, decades later, the role would be taken to another level by the similarly named Christopher Reeve.

"Batman," 1966-1968
Best: Before he was a mayor on "Family Guy," Adam West was THE caped crusader, complete with sidekick Robin (Burt Ward) and all. That said, the main thing this campy show is remembered for is the "Pow!" and "Bam!" graphics during fight scenes.

"Shazam," 1974-1977
Worst: Captain Marvel, a second-rate Superman knockoff to begin with, wasn't done any favors by this atrocity, which had him traveling the country in an RV in a terrible mix of cheesiness and preachiness.

"Wonder Woman," 1975-1979
Best: This 1970s take on the Amazon princess-turned-crime fighter had everything. Bullet-deflecting bracelets. An invisible plane. And it introduced the world to Lynda Carter. Who's complaining?

"The Amazing Spider-Man," 1977-1979
Worst: There are not many photos available from the short-lived "American Spider-Man" live action TV series from the '70s. Perhaps with good reason. Is the web-head wearing eye liner?

"The Greatest American Hero," 1981-1983
Best: The "Greatest American Hero" was pretty terrible at flying, which was kind of the point of the show. Most importantly, it gave us an awesome theme song that was spoofed perfectly by George Costanza's answering machine on "Seinfeld."

"Manimal," 1983
Worst: A show so terrible it's become the low standard to which many superhero shows don't want to be compared. The story of a man who could turn into various animals sounded great on paper, but it was just awful on the screen, mercifully put down after eight episodes.

"The Flash," 1990-1991
Worst: Though it had impressive special effects and costumes (for the time, anyway), "The Flash" had the misfortune of being scheduled against "The Simpsons" and "The Cosby Show." At least its stars John Wesley Shipp and Amanda Pays are getting a chance to return to the property in The CW's reboot of the character.

"Batman: The Animated Series," 1992-1995
Best: You won't find many animated series on our list, especially those aimed at kids. But "Batman: The Animated Series" is the very high-quality exception that was deemed worthy enough to prove our rule.

"Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman," 1993-1997
Worst: In this very '90s version of the classic Superman romance, Lois Lane (Teri Hatcher) and Clark Kent (Dean Cain) spend as much time in the newsroom and the bedroom as the latter's alter ego spends saving the world.

"M.A.N.T.I.S.," 1994-1995
Worst: Before "Iron Man" lit up the big screen, Carl Lumbly took the lead as a paralyzed man who creates an exoskeleton that makes him a hero. Originally fighting more ordinary crime, Fox added more fantastic elements like parallel earths and time travel to try and create excitement, but it didn't work.

"The Tick," 2001-2002
Worst: The live-action version of "The Tick" was weird. Though that's suggesting that the concept behind the hero was anything but. It starred best "Seinfeld" boyfriend ever, Patrick Warburton, as the titular super-bug. And yet, it may be on its way back in a new series with Warburton at Amazon.

"Smallville," 2001-2011
Best: "Smallville" was an alien-out-of-water story about Clark Kent coming of age on his adopted parents' farm. It became a superhero ensemble show that made Green Arrow popular enough to get his own unrelated series.

"Heroes," 2006-2010
Both: Though the NBC series exploring what would happen if ordinary people developed superpowers got off to a strong commercial and critical start, it began earning pans with its third season, and fizzled to a close after its fourth. With "Homeland," it stands as proof that sometimes it's okay to kill the bad guy in the first season.

"No Ordinary Family," 2010-2011
Worst: Michael Chiklis found superhero success as The Thing in the "Fantastic Four" movie franchise. But "No Ordinary Family," about an otherwise normal clan that gains special powers after a plane crash, was just ... so ... boring.

"The Cape," 2011
Worst: This 2011 mid-season replacement on NBC about a corruption-fighting former detective trained in the circus arts (yes, for real) was a huge favorite of "Community's" Abed. Unfortunately, he may have been the only one as it had its initial 13-episode order cut back to 10, with the season finale airing online.

"Arrow," 2012-present
Best: The CW's dark, modern take on the Green Arrow saga hit the target right out of the barn for the network, scoring particularly impressive ratings in the advertiser-sought 18-49 demographic, a rarity for the younger-skewing network. It has now ushered in a new golden age of superheroes on TV.

"Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," 2013-present
TBD: What should have been a surefire hit thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe instead started to fizzle right away, thanks to repetitive and inconsequential storylines. Tying it into "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" reinvigorated it halfway through its freshmen season, but Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) and his team aren't in the clear yet.

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"Adventures of Superman," 1952-1958
Best: The George Reeves version of Krypton's favorite son was pretty well received: springboard jumps and all. Of course, decades later, the role would be taken to another level by the similarly named Christopher Reeve.